Sketchy Micro — Coronavirus

His body was a mess. A scrappy, brilliant mess. Under the electron microscope, he looked like a blurry solar corona—a hazy halo of grey spikes protruding from a lumpy, asymmetrical core. Other viruses had crisp geometry; polio was a perfect icosahedron, rabies a bullet. Sketchy looked like a dandelion that had been drawn from memory by a child. His spike proteins, the famous “S” proteins, didn't even fit neatly. They were bent, some shorter, some longer, as if he’d stolen them from different viruses and glued them on.

Months later, a researcher in a BSL-4 lab looked at a screen. She saw a sequence of his genome—a particular letter where an “A” had changed to a “G.” coronavirus sketchy micro

Sketchy floated in the middle of the inferno, his shaggy corona glowing orange in the heat. He watched the grandmother’s own body burn down its own lung tissue trying to find him. His body was a mess

“Halt! Foreign particle!” a macrophage barked. Other viruses had crisp geometry; polio was a